Lullaby
1
Fugitive, your whole being exists enfolding you now
at the crossroads of the body
where we are and put down
the strange weight we have carried here.
Who was it that wanted this,
and where are we taking it?
Sand dune, broken window, cricket, carress,
empty bottle, apparition, a bone, a voice;
dead buildings in which you felt yourself living,
the sky inside you ripening.
This widowed blue is to cradle you;
this breath to take you home.
2
Derelict melody, relic and reliquary;
echo after everything, friend;
connoisseur of hesitations, connoisseur of thirst,
connoisseur of loss, hallucination and regret,
what if this is all we get, our whole inheritance, nothing else?
To be human and go on blushing, applauding, saying excuse me
without understanding how it started or stopping to ask;
believing somebody else knows, not wanting to be alone.
Transcendental burlesque blossoming in mirrors, paraphernalia,
rainbows, dolorous sombreros, days.
The same presence everywhere. Look for it, it eludes you--
that flesh of golden water
and the drawing dark...
Not wanting to be the only one
with a little black coffin in your heart;
a little black coffin with nothing in it but wind...
For now take this black rock and don't stop polishing it.
A golden cricket lives in it, listen;
a tiny blue loom
